Department of english language and literature

Rhythm & Rhyme

Definition: The concept of ‘rhythm and rhyme’ refers to a pattern of rhymes that is created by using words that produce the same, or similar sounds. Rhythm and rhyme together refer to the recurrence of similar sounds in prose and poetry, creating a musical, gentle effect. Example: “I am a teapot Short and stout; This is my handle And this is my spout. When the water ’s boiling Hear me shout; Just lift me up And pour me out”

Types of rhyme

The word rhyme can be used in a specific and a general sense. In the specific sense, two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical; two lines of poetry rhyme if their final strong positions are filled with rhyming words. A rhyme in the strict sense is also called a perfect rhyme. Examples are sight and flight, deign and gain, madness and sadness.

Perfect rhymes

Perfect rhymes can be classified according to the number of syllables included in the rhyme, which is dictated by the location of the final stressed syllable.

masculine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words (rhyme, sublime)
feminine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate (second from last) syllable of the words (picky, tricky)
dactylic: a rhyme in which the stress is on the antepenultimate (third from last) syllable (cacophonies, Aristophanes)


General rhymes
In the general sense, general rhyme can refer to various kinds of phonetic similarity between words, and to the use of such similar-sounding words in organizing verse. Rhymes in this general sense are classified according to the degree and manner of the phonetic similarity:
syllabic: a rhyme in which the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain stressed vowels. (cleaver, silver, or pitter, patter; the final syllable of the words bottle and fiddle are /l/, a liquid consonant.)
imperfect (or near): a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. (wing, caring)
weak (or unaccented): a rhyme between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables. (hammer, carpenter)
semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. (bend, ending)
forced (or oblique): a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. (green, fiend; one, thumb)
assonance: matching vowels. (shake, hate) Assonance is sometimes referred to as slant rhymes, along with consonance.
consonance: matching consonants. (rabies, robbers)
half rhyme (or slant rhyme): matching final consonants. (bent, ant)
pararhyme: all consonants match. (tell, tall)
alliteration (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (ship, short)